Life in the Balance

Balance.

How do you create it? Do you intentionally organize your life and your days so that your family, your household responsibilities, your passions, your employers, your clients, and all of the other things that rest upon a woman's shoulders, find balance, peace & harmony. not me, I have tried. Oh, how I think some days that if I just sat down and did some kind of formula that it would all fit together.
How do you create it? Is that possible?

I would not be who I am without having had children. I have been very self-conscious in varying degrees through most of my life. When it came to having children, I was more than a little freaked out thinking this precious child is going to come into the world, and out of me- do I have the strength? can I do it?' Not only did I, but both of our children have been born at home with the help of our lovely, lovely midwives; and a strength arose in me that I am not sure I would have discovered otherwise.

I love my children, unlike a love I have ever experienced. They have brought a new reality of what commitment really means into my life. But I must say.....there are days when patience is nowhere to be found. I think of the mother I want to be, and see how I am not. I ache to follow my passions and create, and then a child dumps the compost bucket on the floor and the other starts whining about something not being fair. I get frustrated, impatient, annoyed and defeated. Some days, honestly, my children are not my priority. Some days, I just want to sit at the computer and work away at a project, or finish a book I can hardly put down or just put a pile of papers somewhere and know that in 5 minutes they will still be in the same place.

Reading the posts of other mothers here who are deeply involved in projects they have started or are working on, or in a career, or just living life as they are, I wonder- do you have balance? Is that a goal? I am thinking of a post I read recently by Jaime, about being a perfectionist and a gymnast, and I think of her balance. Is it possible only when we try to discipline ourselves enough?